Journal articles
Muhle, F., Ackland, R. and T. Graham (2018), "Socialbots in politischen Online-Konversationen. Eine (überschätzte) Gefahr für demokratische Willensbildung im Internet?," Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 49(3), 618-638. English translation: "Socialbots in online political conversations. An (overestimated) danger for democratic opinion-formation on the Internet?", ZParl Journal for Parliamentary Issues. https://doi.org/10.5771/0340-1758-2018-3-618
Refereed conference proceedings
Rizoiu, M.-A., Graham, T., Zhang, R., Zhang, Y., Ackland, R. and L. Xie (2018), "#DebateNight: The Role and Influence of Socialbots on Twitter During the 1st 2016 U.S. Presidential Debate", In International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM ’18), pages 1–10, arXiv eprint 1802.09808.
- See related article in Business Insider Australia.
Other outputs
Ackland, R (2018), "We need to talk about the data we give freely of ourselves online and why it’s useful," comment piece for The Conversation, published 22 March 2018.
Working papers
Graham, T. and R. Ackland (2018), "Beyond micro and macro in social network analysis: Monadic network analysis of digital data," draft manuscript completed December 2018.
Halpin, D., Fraussen, B. and R. Ackland (2018), "Do Advocacy Groups Reach Their Audiences on Twitter? Explaining the online engagement of elite, peer and mass audiences with interest groups," under review.
Grants
ANU Cross-College Research Grant from the ANU Research School of Social Sciences for "Advanced tools and methods for analysing the role and influence of bots in social media" (M.A. Rizoiu, T. Graham, J. Davis, R. Ackland, L. Xie, D.Halpin; 2018).
Conference/workshop/seminar presentations
At the 3rd annual Australian Social Network Analysis Conference (ASNAC 2018), Australian National University, Canberra, 27-28 November 2018 (conference chair - Rob Ackland):
- Plenary, session 7 on online networks and crime- "The network structure of political conversations on Twitter"(Rob Ackland).
- Plenary, session 7 on online networks and crime-"Comparative analysis of community versus topic structure in hyperlink networks: A case study of government portal websites" (Tim Graham).
- Tool demonstration- "Collecting social media network data with VOSON dashboard and vosonSML" (Bryan Gertzel)
- Tool demonstration- "Analising networks and text with VOSON dashboard" (Xiaolan Cai)
At the 10th International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2018), Saint Petersburg, Russia, 25-28 September 2018:
- Workshop "Big data analysis for Social Scientists" where VOSON Dashboard- the most recent tool designed and developed in the Lab- was launched (Rob Ackland).
- Poster session "Exploring the Behaviour of SocialBots in Political Conversations on Twitter" (Rob Ackland).
- Guest Lecture "Mapping conversations and the spread of information on Twitter" to Master students at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (17-09-2018) (Rob Ackland).
R. Ackland contributed to a panel discussion on the Ethics of Social Media Data at #SocSciWeek 2018 symposium: Digital Society: New Frontiers in Sociological Research, September11, 2018, ANU.
R. Ackland presented "An Approach for Mapping the Spread of News on Twitter" in the Symposium: Understanding the spread of misinformation in the Australian and US media fields, University of Canberra, September 10, 2018.
1-12 July: R. Ackland and T. Graham visited the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University. Visit funded under Germany. Australia – Germany Joint Research Co-operation Scheme 2017-18 (Universities Australia – DAAD) “Socialbots as political actors? Autonomous communication technologies as tools and objects for digital sociology”.
R. Ackland and T. Graham visited the Médialab Sciences Po in Paris, where they presented at the weekly research methods workshop, July 10, 2018, Paris, France.
R. Ackland was an invited-attendee at the workshop: 10 Years of Web Science: Closing The Loop, Schloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz Zentrum für Informatik (Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics), 24-29 June, 2018 in Dagstuhl, Germany.
Events organised
Australian Social Network Analysis Conference (ASNAC 2018) held on 27-28 November, 2018, at the ANU. Organised by VOSON Lab and ANU School of Sociology. The keynote speaker was Professor Mark Tranmer, School of Social and Political Sciences (University of Galsgow). See ASNAC 2018 Program.
Visitors
Dr Florian Muhle, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany. Australia – Germany Joint Research Co-operation Scheme 2017-18 (Universities Australia – DAAD) “Socialbots as political actors? Autonomous communication technologies as tools and objects for digital sociology”.
Training Programs